Europe's GDPR and its effect on Whois

However, one significant even that did occur as this book was undergoing final edits was that Europe's General Data Protection Rules (GDPR) came into effect. The current practices for collecting and disseminating Registrants' contact details contravene GDPR. This is a problem for domain registrars who are contractually obligated, under their ICANN accreditation agreements, to maintain the Whois database and provide registrant data through them.

ICANN asked the EU for an exemption under GDPR and was denied. The registrars asked ICANN for a moratorium on compliance and were also denied. The result was The Day The Whois Died, May 25, 2018, when across the world, many domain registrars simply stopped displaying Whois data for all domains, while others did so only for registrants in the affected EU countries.

The reality is, right now the entire Whois landscape is gripped with uncertainty and inconsistency. There will likely be some kind of gated-access Whois operating under RDAP in the near future, perhaps by the time you read this.